The bullying of academics follows a pattern of horrendous, Orwellian elimination rituals, often hidden from the public. Despite the anti-bullying policies (often token), bullying is rife across campuses, and the victims (targets) often pay a heavy price.
"Nothing strengthens authority as much as silence." Leonardo da Vinci - "All that is necessary for evil to succeed is that good men [or good women] do nothing." Edmund Burke

August 09, 2007

RAE reject aims to log views of excluded - UK

An academic branded "research inactive" because his work will not be submitted for next year's research assessment exercise is forming a support group for other academics left out in the cold.

Launching an appeal in the letters page of today's Times Higher, Vic Truesdale, a professor of biogeochemistry at Oxford Brookes University, has invited academics "unexpectedly excluded from the RAE" to contact him by e mail at castaway@brookes.ac.uk

"There could be many of us who could do with some mutual support, and in any case somebody should be counting us and logging the insult," he writes.

Next year's RAE is expected to be the most selective ever, with some universities attempting to improve their research ratings by submitting only a small core of researchers, instead of including all their active researchers. There are reports that some universities are excluding even high-quality researchers as they attempt to second-guess the type of research the RAE judging panels will favour.

In the last RAE, in 2001, the work of about 50,000 researchers, out of 116,000 full-time academic staff, had their work submitted. Many claim that exclusion stigmatises academics and damages their careers.

Professor Truesdale said that the RAE "reduces the diversity of intellectual pursuit" and "moulds scientists into automatons".

"I suppose that in the big planning games, as in battle-planning, generals cannot be concerned with the plight of individual soldiers; they are merely cannon fodder," he said. "I want to register the plight of the individual, and to ask the question as to whether you think the cannon-fodder model is appropriate in a 21st-century democracy."

And the letter in Times Higher Education:

May I ask academics who have found themselves unexpectedly excluded from the research assessment exercise to write to me at: castaway@brookes.ac.uk. It seems to me there could be many of us who could do with some mutual support, and in any case somebody should be counting us and logging the insult. I will report back findings if people could describe their predicament as well as add permission for me to disclose information according to the Data Protection Act. This would be handled sensitively.

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Useful and informative Links

• Bad Apple Bullies - If you work as a teacher in Queensland, a Bad Apple Bully principal can destroy your health and your career with malicious gossip and secret sticky-notes.

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• Bully Online - Those who can, do. Those who can't, bully. Bully OnLine is the world's leading web site on workplace bullying and related issues which validates the experience of workplace bullying and provides confirmation, reassurance and re-empowerment.

• Suppression of dissent - The general field of "suppression of dissent" includes whistleblowing, free speech, systems of social control and related topics. The purpose of the site is to foster examination of these issues and action against suppression. It is founded on the assumption that openness and dialogue should be fostered to challenge unaccountable power.

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• The Workplace Bullying Institute is the sole United States organization dedicated to the eradication of workplace bullying through public education, help for individuals, employer solutions and legislative advocacy.